


Bleeding Secondhand

by tuesday



Series: Pain-sharing [3]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV Peter Parker, Peter Parker-centric, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-03-26
Packaged: 2019-12-18 05:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18242900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesday/pseuds/tuesday
Summary: Companion piece to The Bleedover Effect.-Peter was too young to remember the first time, but his mother told him he'd had the ghost pains pretty much from the moment his toddler brain had developed enough to receive them.





	Bleeding Secondhand

**Author's Note:**

> This is a companion piece to The Bleedover Effect. Intended reading order is The Bleedover Effect, Scabbing Over, then Bleeding Secondhand. For the most fun, read TBE, to right before the last scene of Scabbing Over (you'll know where to stop), Bleeding Secondhand, then come back to finish SO.
> 
> This has all the warnings and content advisories of the first fic with some more added in the end notes. This is a series where I definitely recommend reading the advisories and understand just plain giving it a miss.
> 
> Day four of Five Days of Tuesday. I'm not 100% happy with it/how much retreading there is in the middle, but I am very happy to get it out of my wip folder. I have at least one more fic left sort of in this 'verse, but I think I'm done with this storyline. :D
> 
> Thanks to Areiton for looking this over for missing words, to the ironspider people for listening to me go on about this, and to duckmoles, natcat, and strozzzi for listening to me go on in DMs in general. You're all great. ♥

Peter was too young to remember the first time, but his mother told him he'd had the ghost pains pretty much from the moment his toddler brain had developed enough to receive them. Never anything big, but stubbed toes when he was being carried, small cuts that never appeared, a burn on his forearm once that had him sobbing for hours in sympathetic pain.

Peter forgot so much about his parents, but he remembered his mother, a smile on her face wreathed in late afternoon sunlight streaming through the kitchen window as she said, "It's a blessing, Peter. It's how you know they're alive, out there, waiting for you."

No one said that when he was a bit older and fell over in the park, when he started screaming and clawing at his chest, feeling like he was going to die, "Get it out, get it out, get it out."

For the most part, the slivers of pain and pressure in his chest weren't gotten out. More went in. Years later, he'd know it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The actual event took place on the other side of the globe. The pain was a little bit blunted, muted—as much as it ever got, anyway. For the Peter of that time, it was the worst thing he'd ever felt. (Not the worst he'd ever feel, though.)

From then on, Peter always knew, always, that his soulmate was alive somewhere and hurting. It was a blessing, but it was also a curse. Peter learned to live with it.

—

When the Chitauri invaded, Peter lost his parents and he lost his soulmate in one fell swoop, the pain in his chest fading out to nothing as he sat huddled in a public shelter with strangers.

His soulmate came back, the constant pain and pressure in Peter's chest flaring back to life, along with an assortment of other myriad aches and pains.

His parents didn't.

—

It wasn't all bad. Most people didn't know who their soulmate was until they were much older, though it was getting younger all the time with the advent of the internet and countless dedicated forums and matching services.

Peter didn't need them. Peter took one look at Iron Man on the TV, at the light glowing in his chest and (everyone presumed) part of his armor, and thought, rubbing at his chest, "Huh, that's what that is."

It was easy to get confirmation. Iron Man got hurt all the time, even if you couldn't see it through the armor.

Peter didn't tell anyone. Who would he? His aunt and uncle had their own problems. No one else would believe him. Besides, this was Peter's, something secret that belonged to him alone.

—

But when Flash Thompson mouthed off about superheroes in general and Tony Stark in particular—"He's not a real hero," Flash said, parroting back the opinions of some of the adults around them—Peter didn't hesitate to throw himself into his first and only schoolyard fight.

Peter got in a number of ineffectual hits, not any sort of actual fighter. Flash broke his nose. They both got in _so much trouble_.

Flash kind of held it against him for years.

That was okay. Peter knew he shouldn't, but he still held a bit of a grudge, too.

Iron Man was a hero. Tony Stark was a hero. Of all the good things in his life—his aunt, his uncle, his childhood friends—and all the bad—and Peter tried not to count them or cling to them, tried to let them go—the very best was that his soulmate was, a real, true, bona fide superhero.

—

When they announced Tony Stark was missing, presumed dead, Peter just held a hand to his chest and smiled, tremulous, but sure. It was a shame about his house, though. It had looked really cool before those helicopters blew it up.

—

Peter knew about the arc reactor (though it took him a while to know to call it that) and he knew about the surgery to remove it, which knocked him flat on his back for days. He told his uncle, "I think he was in a car crash," while his aunt called him out from school for a while. Neither questioned Peter's certainty his soulmate was male. Sometimes people just knew.

Peter held a hand against his chest, where it hurt, but was finally, finally healing. As ever, he kept Tony's secrets.

—

Later on, Tony kept some of his.

Though Peter had to web his hand to the bedroom door to keep him from telling Aunt May about Spider-Man.

—

Honestly, he'd thought Tony had just known, the way he seemed to know everything on TV, always self-assured and cool. He'd thought that was why Tony had thought to look up Spider-Man in the first place, why he would trust Peter with a mission in Germany against the Rogue Avengers despite only seeing a few shaky YouTube videos as an unintentional and makeshift portfolio of his work.

He'd thought Tony had known, but lying there on the tarmac looking up at Tony's devastated face, Peter realized that oh, no, not so much.

Peter didn't feel bad about not telling him. Tony definitely knew following their trip to Germany, but he didn't say anything, either.

—

_Two months passed._

Not that Peter was counting.

(Peter was very much counting, and with each day and each failed return message—ever and always only about the Avengers and Spider-Man, because he wasn't going to bring this up over voicemail being sent to Happy—he grew a little sadder, a little colder inside.)

—

He pulled Mr. Delmar out of the burning sandwich shop only to come face to faceplate with an unamused Tony Stark. Voice blank, unable to process Tony here and real and aware of Peter's absolute failure at keeping things contained, Peter asked, "Isn't this a little below your paygrade?"

It was not.

But though Peter tried, Tony didn't stick around to talk about the soulmate thing.

—

The next time, Tony wasn't even there in person. Maybe he hadn't been the last time, either. He terminated the connection and left Peter sitting alone in the park, draped over a jungle gym as some sort of symbolism for how Tony had no time for childish things. Despite the built-in heater, Peter was shivering.

It was—well, it wasn't fine, but it would be okay. Peter had learned to live with a lot of things over the years. He could learn to live with this, too, a world where his soulmate didn't want him, was horrified to be saddled with a kid.

And if Peter didn't let Tony know he was still looking into the weapons problem, it wasn't like it was any of Tony's business.

Peter did feel bad about the ferry, though.

—

Before the ferry, Peter had it under control.

Or maybe he didn't have it under control, but he was trying. Ned and Karen helped.

"It's so cool that he made you an AI!"

"It's very cool," Karen blandly agreed.

Ned made an incoherent, but excited noise. Peter was nowhere near as optimistic.

"You're not going to tell him about any of this, are you?" Peter asked nervously.

"Why? Do you want me to?"

"No! Absolutely not. He really, really doesn't need to know."

"I am programmed to keep you happy and safe."

"Happy comes first?" Peter asked.

"They are weighted equally."

"Can I ask you to weight happy higher?"

"Dude!" Ned said, then put his hands over his mouth.

"You can."

"Happy definitely comes first, then," Peter said. "And it would make me very happy if you didn't tell Tony what's actually going on."

"I understand."

"You suborned Stark's AI by talking to it," Ned said in an awed tone.

"She's my AI. Isn't that right, Karen?"

"Yes, Peter. You come first in my priorities."

Peter grinned. Maybe Tony wanted nothing to do with him, but he did give the best gifts.

Peter ran into Liz on the way out. She invited him to go swimming with the rest of the team.

"Not my thing," Peter said. Everyone knew he didn't go out in anything less than full-sleeve shirts, though they thought it was because he was shy, not because he had a strong connection to a soulmate he had good reason to believe could give him sympathy bruising at any moment. Tony's life was many things, but it wasn't safe. Then again, neither was Peter's these days. "Ask Ned, though?"

—

Peter got hit on the head hard enough to knock out anyone who didn't have superpowers, maybe hard enough to crush a regular person's skull, and left on the side of the side road to die. He wasn't actually dying—he just felt like it.

"Should I call for help?" Karen asked as the trucks drove away and the Vulture took off into the sky.

"Don't tell Mr. Stark," Peter said. He knew it was only a matter of time until the pain woke Tony up, and that was assuming he was asleep at this hour.

"Mr. Stark is calling in."

Peter panicked even as he felt the first licks of hope's flames. This was a terrible time to discuss the whole soulmate thing, but Peter wanted it. He really, really wanted it. "For me?"

"For me," Karen said.

It wasn't the first or last time Peter got burned. Peter repeated, "Don't tell him. Say I—say I fell down the stairs."

On the plus side, he got back in time such that no one but Ned knew he'd been out.

—

Peter stayed with Michelle at the bottom of the Washington Monument. Actually, he didn't even stay with her. He said, "I'm going to take a walk," and booked it down the Mall before anyone could contradict him.

He was sitting under a tree when Karen detected the explosion and texted him to pick up his backpack and put on the suit. Everyone in the elevator nearly died, including Peter when he got up there and threw himself in. He had a brief moment to think of Tony, and then all he could think of was how to fix it, to save everyone.

"Good job," Karen said when it was all over. "Would you like to talk to Mr. Stark?"

"No," Peter said.

"Should I keep this confidential, too?"

Peter laughed. There was little amusement in it. "We're on the news. I think he already knows."

—

The ferry—he wasn't even trying to impress Tony, not anymore. His feelings were a complicated snarl he'd thought he could pick apart at his leisure later. Much later. Once the arms dealers handing out high-tech weaponry were all arrested.

Instead, he'd interrupted their lawful arrest, gotten a ferry cut in half, and finally, finally gotten a call from Tony, only to hang up on him in favor of facilitating a first-class disaster. Tony's armor hung around after to lecture him some more.

Bitterly, Peter said, "You're not even here."

Tony stepped out of the armor. His face was all tense lines. There was nothing of the warm welcome Peter could pretend had lingered there the first day they'd met. Tony's lecture was delivered in person, but it wasn't any more personal for it. He had a lot of things to say about safety and personal responsibility and public endangerment. He went on for a while about the danger to Peter himself.

But—

But he was such a hypocrite. He was worried about Peter? _Tony Stark_ , who could barely look at him on the rare occasion they were in the same place, much less acknowledge what they were—what they were _supposed to be_ —to each other?

Peter couldn't help asking, "What do you care if I die? Wouldn't that make it easier? You've made it clear you don't want me."

Tony's face drained of blood. "What did you say?"

"You don't want me," Peter said, because it was true, and he was going to make Tony acknowledge it. "You'd rather not have a soulmate at all."

"If it means having someone who tries to throw their life away—" Tony shut his mouth with a click of his teeth. Abruptly, he said, "I'm taking it back."

Peter knew he didn't mean his words. Peter might not have any other clothes, but he hit the suit's release, and like always, Tony couldn't turn away fast enough. All Tony said, though, was, "Where's your backpack? I'll get your spare clothes."

Through gritted teeth, Peter said, "I don't have any."

Tony sighed, because of course this was all so inconvenient for him. "Then I'll go get you some. Try not to strip on top of public buildings."

It was only a sense of concern over what Aunt May would think that kept Peter from walking home naked.

—

The words were on the tip of his tongue. _I lost the internship._ An excuse for May without revealing any of the Spider-Man stuff, a way to keep his secrets and still explain why he was so upset.

"I met my soulmate," Peter said, voice numb, but feeling too much. May was already reaching out, drawing him in. "He doesn't want me."

"Oh, Peter." May threaded her fingers through his hair.

"He doesn't want me." Peter buried his face in her shirt. " _He doesn't want me._ "

—

Later that night, things got a little weird. His balance was off. The world was spinning. He felt like he was going to throw up. He clung to his bed, but it didn't help.

He thought, _So this is what being drunk is like_.

He tried not to think how bad it must be for the bleedover to be this bad.

It didn't matter. Tony made his own choices. He'd already proven that Peter didn't get a say at all.

—

(Peter was almost viciously satisfied with the headache he had the morning that followed.)

—

It didn't get that bad again. Peter's balance was off, and he got nauseated sometimes, but it wasn't the floor-clinging awfulness that had followed the argument over the ferry. Then again, according to the gossip sites, Tony was currently locked in a hotel room on the other side of the world.

"You're not usually this clumsy, Parker," his gym teacher said, having just kept Peter from pitching face first into the turf again.

"Bleedover effect," Peter said shortly.

"Ah. Vertigo's a pain, even secondhand. You're sitting the rest of this period out."

Peter tipped over sideways on the bleachers. Liz joined him. She said, "It's not vertigo, is it?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

Liz's smile was sad. "I'm sure you don't. But for the record, you're not the only one with a selfish soulmate."

Peter hadn't thought about it, still wasn't, really, but he said, "Hey, Liz. Do you have a date to the dance?"

"You know, I was so busy with planning it, I hadn't considered who I was going to go with."

"How about me?"

Liz's face brightened. "I'd like that, Peter." She patted Peter's left hand, which was lying limply on the cold metal of the bleacher's bench. "But, um, just as friends."

Peter smiled faintly back at her. "That sounds good to me." Peter could really use a friend right now who understood. Ned was great, but he knew about Spider-Man, not the rest of it. He said, so quiet she could pretend she didn't hear him, "Do you know yours?"

She shook her head and pushed her hair back. Just as quietly, she admitted, "Sometimes I don't think I want to." Her smile came back as she said, seemingly mostly joking, "Besides, that leaves me free for Spider-Man."

Peter was being honest when he said, "He'd be lucky to have you."

—

Peter put on a suit (not that one), bought a corsage, and went to Liz's house to escort her to the big dance she'd put so much work into. He found out he wasn't the only one keeping secrets from his family about what he did each night. He sat in the back of her father's car, petrified and determined in equal measure, and listened in awkward silence to the man make veiled threats.

"What do you say?" the Vulture asked.

 _My soulmate is a hundred times more terrifying than you could ever hope to imagine_ , Peter thought.

"Thank you, sir," Peter said.

Peter got out of the car. He went into the dance. He told Liz he had to leave. She looked concerned.

"Is it because of—?" She made a gesture he interpreted to mean "your mysterious asshole soulmate."

"Something like that," Peter said.

But it wasn't. This had nothing to do with Tony at all. Peter pulled up some lockers, grabbed a suit he'd made with his own two hands, and asked Ned to be his guy in the chair.

—

Peter did try calling Tony first. He wasn't stupid. He was in over his head and he needed help. He just didn't expect Tony to answer.

Good thing, too. Otherwise he might've been disappointed by the way the call rang through.

Peter rubbed at his chest, a motion that once had soothed him. Now, there was nothing there. He pulled on his old mask and web-shooters and went out to stop a supervillain.

—

He ended up under several tons of rubble in a partially collapsed building.

Tony wasn't coming. Even if he'd cared, he wouldn't know where to start looking. That was if the pain of it hadn't laid him out flat. (Peter tried really hard not to think about the damage done to Tony's heart over the years even as he felt his chest seize in what was either sympathy or a panic attack.) Peter screamed a little. He screamed a lot. As ever, he was alone.

Eventually, he pulled himself together and pulled himself out. Everything hurt. He was bleeding. His vision was a little blurry, and he thought he might have a concussion.

It didn't matter. Peter had spent his whole life putting aside pain to function. It was only a little harder when it was his own.

—

Peter hitched a ride with a supervillain up to an invisible plane and was in the middle of trying to figure out a plan when something came rocketing into the little bit of peripheral vision the goggles gave him. He swung and missed. Iron Man's unamused visage stared back at him. Tony held out his arms, something Peter had once dreamt of. Peter shook his head. Tony held out his arms more insistently.

Resenting every second of it—that might be Tony's plane, but Peter was wearing his own equipment and had tried calling first, so Tony had no right to come collect him like some unruly child being picked up from preschool—Peter webbed himself to the armor and shifted over.

The armor hovered while the plane shot forward. Peter had caught the trick of the slight shimmer it gave off as it moved, and he watched as it did a sudden turn and dive. Peter wondered what the Vulture was doing in there.

Tony, completely ignoring the ongoing supervillain problem, said, "I don't know what else I can do to keep you safe, but this isn't working."

"You're never safe," Peter couldn't help pointing out, even though this really wasn't the time for it.

"I try to be. I'm pretty bad at it." The plane was falling toward the ocean at speed, but for some reason _now_ Tony wanted to talk it out instead of literally the entire rest of the time they'd known each other. "I do want you. I wanted you to exist long before you were ever born."

"Um." Peter pointed at where the Vulture was cutting his way back out of the plane from the opposite side he'd gone in. "Should we do something about that?"

"Right. Good talk. Long overdue. Let's finish it later."

They finally did something about the supervillain problem, but to Peter's surprise, they continued the conversation once they were on the ground and Tony had taken care of the details of everything that came after. Tony walked up to him, still in the suit, and Peter tried to get in the first word, because he was sure he knew how this was going to go.

"Mr. Stark—"

"Tony," Tony interrupted him. "At this point, you should probably call me Tony."

As if it were that easy to start over. "I did try calling this time."

"Why didn't you before? You could update Happy on dog rescues and lost tourists, but not on a weapons deal I already told you to stay out of?"

Peter looked out at the ocean, because he couldn't bear to see Tony's stupid, judgmental, _disappointed_ face, not again. He thought about how to explain it, the years of waiting, the high of finally meeting followed by the lows of being ignored, being found unworthy, being shown time and again that whatever Peter had wanted or hoped or dreamed, Tony wasn't interested in having a soulmate running around underfoot and getting in his way. And the worst part was, before Tony had known, he had treated Peter like he was someone worth knowing, like Peter brought something to the table besides youth and inexperience. He'd treated Peter like they could be colleagues, like maybe they could be friends someday.

"You were happy to have me help until you knew who I was. You could, you could depend on me to fight Captain America to a standstill, but then—nothing, because the second you knew I was your soulmate, you wanted nothing to do with me. You pawned me off on Happy and just—pushed me away." Peter stumbled over his words, frustrated with his own feelings and how they got in the way of saying what he needed to. He sounded like a dumb kid, not like someone who'd had his heart broken. "I didn't, I didn't even need you to acknowledge the whole—" Peter waved a hand, unable to bring himself to put it into words, "—thing, but you could've at least treated me like an adult, like a, like a fellow hero."

"I was never going to treat you like an adult." There it was. The ugly truth that Peter had never had a chance. "Germany was always going to be a one-time deal, because you are fifteen, and even if you weren't my soulmate, I didn't want you getting hurt. Maybe I was kidding myself when I recruited you for it, but there was never supposed to be a fight." Tony sighed. "But I did mean to tell you, to talk about it."

"Why didn't you?"

Tony had a lot of reasons, but they boiled down to one very important one he never actually voiced aloud. Peter realized it looking over at Tony as he said, "I spent over half my life thinking I didn't have a soulmate. And even once I did, you weren't really real to me until—until Germany. Until you got laid out in a fight I dragged you into."

Tony was scared. Peter had spent his entire life wondering if Tony would die before they ever actually met, but Tony was terrified that Peter would now that they had. Peter said, "You know that wasn't your fault?"

"Kid, that was the very definition of my fault."

"I made my own decisions."

"And I'm the one who gave you the opportunity."

Peter didn't know how much clearer he could actually be. "You're not responsible for me."

"Maybe not. But if you think I wouldn't tear the world apart if you needed, if anything happened to you when after all this time I've finally found you, well. You're young. You haven't gotten the chance to know me."

Peter didn't say, _Whose fault is that?_ Peter didn't point out that the very first thing Tony had done when he'd found Peter was to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Peter just listened as Tony monologued like a misguided warning.

"They probably haven't published too many articles of what I used to be like in your lifetime. I was once a very bad man, and I'm self-aware enough to know I have the capacity to be worse given the proper motivation." Tony tapped a gauntlet-covered finger over Peter's heart. "You provide a lot of motivation, Peter."

"I don't need you to tear the world apart." Peter didn't _want_ Tony to tear the world apart. "I just need you to be there."

"I'm here now," Tony said, but he followed it up with, "Come on, I called a car."

Peter was maybe coming to terms with Tony's inability to deal with things, but he couldn't help the bitter, disbelieving, "Seriously? 'I'm here now,' but then you're sending me away again."

Tony stepped out of the armor. "The car's for me, too."

"Oh." Peter felt that faint lick of hope's flames, even as he knew he was just going to get burned again.

—

They got into the car. There was a set of clothes waiting for Peter to change. Tony very pointedly looked away as Peter stripped off the suit. It was awkward in the enclosed space, but Peter managed. The clothes didn't really fit, but they were better than the torn and bloody costume.

Peter didn't know what to say, what a good topic of conversation would be with a decades older soulmate who'd mostly rejected you. Whatever it might be, it wasn't what Tony actually led with.

"So your girlfriend's dad, huh? That's rough."

"Liz isn't my girlfriend," Peter said, but he guessed he could see where Tony got that from the frantic message he'd left of, "The Vulture is my Homecoming date's dad."

"I imagine not anymore if you left her in the middle of the big dance."

Not for the last time, Peter thought, _This is my soulmate?_ At least from Tony's wince, it was obvious he was regretting his words, too. Peter said, "No, we—we went as friends." Then, because Tony was still turned away from him, was always turning away from him, "Would you at least look at me?"

"I was trying to give you privacy." Tony's gaze was assessing, thorough. It lingered on Peter's bruises, on his split lip, on the mess of his hair despite all the time Peter had put into fixing it earlier that evening. For some reason, it didn't make Peter as self-conscious as he might have expected. It was oddly sympathetic, warm. "Need to get back for any exciting after-parties?"

"It's a high school dance."

"That's not a no."

"No. There are no exciting after-parties, and," Peter pitched his voice low, embarrassed, though it wasn't like Tony didn't already know Peter was a complete dork, "if there were, I wouldn't be invited to them."

"You're invited to mine. Not very exciting, just a couple people, but I can offer a late dinner and—" there was a pause, so brief as to be almost unnoticeable, "—Coca-Cola—kids still like Coke, right? There's also sparkling water."

It occured to Peter that however bad he was at this, Tony was almost worse. Never mind the push-pull of this conversation or the mixed messages Tony was giving off here. Peter was covered in bruises while wearing another man's clothes. It was probably bad enough they were in a car together. If no one figured out the Spider-Man thing, it would be because they assumed worse than aiding and abetting an underaged superhero. Much worse.

"Is that really a good idea?"

"Not even a little."

"I want to," Peter said slowly, because he really did. It didn't change the fact that he was quickly realizing, "But we don't always get what we want."

Tony's smile was lopsided. He agreed, "We don't." Peter crossed his arms, hunched in on himself at the reminder that Tony hadn't. Tony put a hand on his shoulder. "Sometimes we get something a little better."

"But you don't—" Peter swallowed. He shook his head and looked toward the window so Tony couldn't see him blink back tears. He closed his eyes. "After this, am I ever going to see you?"

Tony squeezed once and withdrew. "I'll be around. You don't want an old man hovering over you."

That was exactly what Peter wanted, but he offered Tony an easy out. "Just creeping in the background?"

Tony took it. Peter was sure Tony would've taken any exit available if it got him out of this.

But Peter was no longer quite so certain that it would be because Tony wanted to.

—

Tony wasn't really around after that. Oh, there were signs that he was creeping in the background: a new phone, new books and equipment at school, a new landlord who was much more attentive and was updating the building. Karen and the suit got several software updates, and Peter got two new suits, though he'd only ever needed the one.

But Peter left message after message updating Happy or FRIDAY or whoever Tony had listening to his voicemail on life and heroing at the street level, only to get nothing in return. He was shouting into the void. He'd thought—there was some stupid, childish part of him that had thought Tony might at least show up for the big things. He was never going to join Sunday family dinners with Aunt May, but Peter's birthday? Sixteen was kind of a big deal. Not seventeen in the state of New York big deal, but big enough.

Tony sent a card and a cheap Iron Man keychain with a key on it, plus a note that read, "You'll get the rest when you graduate." The card wasn't even signed.

Tony sent things, but he wasn't ever actually there. Peter flubbed his first message and nearly called Tony an asshole. He pressed the option for deleting it, then started over after taking several deep breaths and wiping at his face. He forced a smile, because supposedly you could hear that in someone's voice—that they were smiling, not that it was really more of a grimace. Peter hoped Tony couldn't tell that much.

"Hey, Tony. I got the card. Thank you. I appreciate your taking the time to think of me." Peter didn't know if Tony had even thought of him, didn't know whether Tony had set an assistant on buying the card and the car, only for his aunt to put her foot down. Some days it was easier to hold onto optimism than others.

Days like killer robots spilling out onto the street level and bringing Peter's soulmate with them. War Machine and Vision went zipping past, then Tony in a red and gold armor, all looking much more put together than the robots they were facing. They were also much less likely to try electrocuting Peter, though he could _feel_ Tony glaring daggers through the faceplate.

Tony could suck it up. Peter had called it in, plus he'd been there first. He swung a little closer to Tony to call out, "Control chips aren't in the head!" He waved one of said heads in emphasis before using it as a makeshift bowling ball to knock a small crowd over. He cheered when he got a spare.

When it was all over, Peter sat on the side of a building and caught a compliment from Tony, though it was more Tony complimenting himself. Suit number three was working out pretty well, and apparently Tony thought so, too.

Peter was riding the high of breaking it in, so despite the electrical burns (his pain) and what felt like a hard knock to the left tibia (almost certainly Tony's), he was in good humor as he said, "Thanks. I know a guy."

Tony's subsequent reveal that he was the one listening to Peter's messages knocked the wind out of Peter more effectively than any malfunctioning robot.

Tony didn't stick around after that, but then, Peter wasn't expecting him to.

—

Hope burned at Peter a little more frequently after that.

It was rewarded when Tony showed up for his seventeenth birthday a day early with a strawberry cake.

Aunt May answered the door. "You know he's not seventeen yet. His birthday's not until tomorrow."

Tony's genuine confusion got him into the living room. "Does he only get cake on his birthday? That seems a little extreme."

"Neither of you gets anything more before that." May watched Tony with narrowed eyes that said she'd happily call the cops on Tony herself.

"I'm not sure what you're implying here," Tony said slowly, "but I can guarantee I'm just here for dinner. With both of you."

"Aunt May found out about the Spider-Man thing and figured out the soulmate thing," Peter said. "She's also going to _go order food_ and trust you're not going to hurt me."

"Oh, I'll order food, but I'm not extending trust here to anyone but you, Peter." May almost pointedly ruffled his hair before going to retrieve the take-out menus from the kitchen drawer they lived in.

"And you wondered why I didn't attend your last birthday party," Tony said. His smile was awkward, uncertain, as though he wasn't sure he could joke about that yet.

"I really didn't." Peter shuffled closer to Tony only for Tony to shuffle further away. Peter sighed. "Are you going to hand me that cake?"

"Right." Tony did.

The brush of theirs hands as Peter accepted the small container was the closest he let Peter get all night right until the moment he was walking out the door. At that point, he looked between Peter, who did his best to project _in less than three hours, I turn seventeen_ , and May, who had her back turned to them as she collected the leftovers to go in the fridge.

Peter swallowed and took a chance. He held out his arms. Tony drew him in for a brief, hesitant hug. One hand rested on Peter's back, over his spine and between his shoulder blades. The other rested on the back of Peter's neck. Tony's thumb brushed against where Peter's hair was getting a bit long.

Peter clutched the back of Tony's jacket and, perhaps overly forward, but feeling long overdue, buried his nose in Tony's collar to inhale Tony's expensive cologne, detergent, and the smell of Tony underneath, body wash and exhaust and musk and metal, a dizzying array of everything he'd picked up in his work and his environment and also everything he naturally was. Tony's thumb swept the edge of Peter's hair to his bare skin and back again.

Peter could almost pretend that Tony's next soft inhale was him breathing in Peter, too.

"Thank you for coming," Peter said, somewhat muffled by Tony's shoulder, but no less sincere for it.

"It was my pleasure." Tony let go after that, but Peter could detect no lie. Tony smiled as he said, "I look forward to doing it all over again next year. Let me know if you want a different cake. Always good to get your order in early."

It was a nice night. It was a _good_ night. It was the sort of night to give Peter hope.

Peter hadn't learned his lesson about that yet. He probably never would.

—

Whatever was good about year seventeen in the life of Peter Parker was overshadowed by Thanos and everything that came with the Infinity Stones.

—

(Peter felt it, every agonizing second of it, as he came apart. From Tony's expression, cradling Peter's body in his arms, Tony felt it, too.)

—

What followed wasn't so great, either.

—

Everything was hazy and distant, thoughts and feelings received and perceived through a heavy filter. During the day, or at least what passed for day for Peter now, he tagged along with Tony, secondhand and heavily distorted.

At night, or at least when Tony was sleeping, he relived dying, turning to dust molecule by molecule. He tried to touch Tony's face, but his hand drifted away on the wind. Tony's expression was bleak, bereft, his eyes wide, his lips thin.

He said, begged, "You're fine, it's going to be fine."

It was weird, but Peter preferred the nights, Tony lying, but close, holding Peter in his arms and pleading quietly for him not to go. No matter how many times it happened, Peter didn't want to. The pain was preferable to being parted, to being stuck on the other end of a one-way connection and watching Tony tear himself apart inside.

It got worse. This was Peter's life—or what was left of it. Of course it got worse.

Tony claimed he was going to fix it. Tony thought he was fixing it.

Tony tore the whole damn universe apart.

—

The pain woke him, secondhand and excruciating. The human brain wasn't meant to hold two sets of memories. While Tony Stark went to his knees in his workshop, bleeding from his eyes, ears, and nose, Peter flailed his way out of bed. He ended up on the floor, though he was missing the seconds between sitting up and falling over. He clutched his head in his hands and tried desperately to hold on as it felt like his brain simultaneously was exploding and melting out of his ears.

He got flashes and images as his body and healing factor did its best to fix the damage as it happened and failed to contain the full extent of the fallout: His own hand turning to dust and floating away on the wind. Tony's—older, with additional scars and scabs, a little dirty and bloody—reaching forward to pluck the stone from an unmoving Vision's forehead. A gauntlet, oversized and ridiculous and terrifying, dwarfing Tony’s arm as Tony held his hand up and snapped his fingers.

While Tony was throwing up in a trash can in his workshop, the bile burning Peter's throat from a handful of miles away, Peter pressed his face into the scratchy thread of the carpet of his bedroom and passed out. It wasn't an escape or a reprieve. The memories followed.

—

(Tony was four years old and completing his first circuit board. Tony was twelve years old and standing stiff and still, like if he didn't move, people would forget he was in the room and let him stay. Tony was fifteen years old in a crowd of young adults accepting drink after drink pressed into his hands. Tony was twenty years old and trembling at his parents' graves. Tony was twenty-five years old and standing loose and easy with Obadiah Stane's hand resting heavy on the back of his neck, grounding him. Tony was thirty years old with his pants around his ankles as he buried his head between a brunette's thighs. Tony was forty-seven years old and telling a curator, "I'll take it. Who knows? Maybe he'll like art."

Peter was seventeen and twenty-two and ageless, watching and watching and watching, unable to interfere.)

—

Peter came awake shuddering with secondhand pain. He was immediately pulled under again.

—

(Tony was a chubby-faced toddler chewing on his own fist. Tony was seven years old and earnestly telling a solemn-faced man, "But he has to see me, he's my dad." Tony was fourteen and staring wide-eyed around a robotics lab. Tony was twenty-one and sandwiched between two blondes. Tony was twenty-eight and knocking back glass after glass of whiskey. Tony was thirty-five and making a minor adjustment to a blueprint.)

—

Peter wondered if maybe this was his own pain, not secondhand after all.

—

(Tony was eight and telling his mother, "I haven't felt anyone." Tony was fifteen and sprawled against a tiled bathroom wall with a razor blade in his hands, eyes not quite tracking, but sharp with concentration as he made the first stroke, parting the flesh of his thigh. Tony was twenty-three and vomiting in a houseplant. Tony was thirty and patting U on its strut, eyes bright with affection. Tony was thirty-eight and flipping off the workshop lights. Tony was forty-five and had his head in his hands as he asked Rhodey, "What do I even have to offer someone that age?")

—

"Please," Peter gasped out. "Stop."

But it didn't stop. Tony's memories continued to unfold for him, an invasion of privacy and an intimacy Peter had never meant to take from him. He'd always wanted to know Tony better, but not like this. Not like this.

—

(Tony was and Tony was and Tony was. Peter was along for the ride.)

—

When it was over, it wasn't over. The memories lurked, creeping at the edge of his thoughts, waiting to bloom into full-blown, relived technicolor the instant he paid them any mind. They crept into his dreams.

(Peter's cheek was pressed against the cool tile of the wall as he watched Tony bang the back of his head against it and cry out, "Why won't you answer?" His jeans were pulled down to his calves. Blood poured down his thigh, staining his underwear and pooling on the bathroom floor.

Rhodey burst in and said, "Oh my God, Tony. What did you— _oh my God_.")

They picked up every tangent they could, MIT lectures overlapping his high school teachers.

"Are you paying attention?" the teacher asked, and Peter had trouble telling if they were talking to him or to Tony, drowsing and hungover in the seat beside him.

They even interrupted patrol, a mugger's face just similar enough to SI's CFO to pull up the memory of a board meeting, and Peter caught the mugger's hands with his face. It was not fun cleaning the blood of a broken nose out of the mask.

(Tony trashed the bloody boxers as Rhodey said, "You have to promise me. _Promise me_ , Tony."

Tony said, "It was a dumb idea. I get that. I just thought—it was so dumb to think I deserved a soulmate, anyway."

"You may not have a soulmate, but you have me."

Peter had to look away as Rhodey enfolded Tony in his arms. It wasn't—it wasn't like that, but this wasn't a moment meant for Peter's eyes. Tony's bitten back sobs weren't meant for Peter's ears. Tony's words weren't meant for Peter when he said, "I promise. I promise, Rhodey. I won't do it again.")

"Are you okay?" Ned asked.

("Are you okay?" Rhodey asked.

Tony held his head in his hands. "No. I'm really not.")

"Probably not," Peter admitted.

—

Impossibly enough, he got used to it. He kept forgetting what they were working on in class, where he was in the moment, past and present bleeding together, but he kept up with the reading, and it wasn't like he hadn't been distracted with the Spider-Man thing before. Now, instead of looking up from a YouTube video of himself in action in order to solve an equation on the whiteboard, he tore his attention away from Howard Stark explaining circuit boards to a four year old. The equation got solved either way.

Sure, Ned needed to nudge him for attention more often, and MJ asked if he was on drugs, and he nearly got hit by a car when he was walking through a parking lot but seeing a garage filled with cars in a mansion that now rested in pieces at the bottom of the ocean. Sure, Aunt May was worried he wasn't getting enough sleep—and he probably wasn't, because his dreams were filled with the everyday moments of the past of someone else's life where they weren't screaming nightmares of the future. Sure, he'd nearly done a header through the window of an office building when he swerved to avoid a Chitauri that had been blown out of the sky nearly a decade ago.

The point was, though, that this had rapidly become his new normal. He was getting better at shaking himself out of it or at least seeing both at once, the real world and the memories. He was getting better at it, and it was probably time—past time—to let Tony know it was happening, to confront him on what had happened.

Peter picked up his phone any number of times, but he had no follow through. Tomorrow, he told himself. Tomorrow.

But that tomorrow never came.

—

Classes continued until they didn't. Before he knew it, he was putting on a scratchy graduation gown and taking picture after picture with May and with Ned and MJ together and separately. When he walked the aisle after the principal called his name, he looked up at the crowd of friends and families sitting in the bleachers, but there were no surprises.

—

His birthday rolled around. Peter had decided they could talk about it then. Tony would bring that cake he had promised, and May had already agreed that this year, she'd let them have some time alone, even if she remained unenthusiastic about the identity of Peter's soulmate. It could be worse. She could know about Titan and everything that came after.

Peter went out with Ned the Saturday before. They were going to MIT together, something Ned had rubbed in Flash's face for the last couple months of school, so it wasn't a big deal to say, "Sorry, but this year, I've already got plans."

Tony didn't come over the night before Peter's birthday. Peter thought that was because he'd intended to come the day of this time.

Tony didn't show for that either.

—

Peter had kept that stupid Iron Man key chain with its key to a car he didn't even want. But when he dug it out from the box that had some old photos, the first science fair ribbon he'd ever won, and some of his baby teeth—not sure if he was going to throw it away for the umpteenth time only to dig it back out again from the trash five minutes later or stare at it while he cried—he had the sudden realization, long overdue, that it wasn't a car key. At least, not any car key he'd ever seen.

Curiosity knocked him out of the worst of the hurt or at least distracted him from it. Peter took a picture of it and did a reverse google image search, but all that brought up was house keys, and it wasn't like anyone was going to give a sixteen year old a house. He tried looking at high end cars, but that was a dead end. Peter tapped the key against his chin, considering. It was nearly three in the morning. He'd had it for two years. It could wait for him to get a little sleep first.

If nothing else, it might serve as a conversation starter that wasn't about Infinity Stones or yelling at Tony for missing his birthday.

—

Karen had directions to Tony's house. Tony had left one of the upstairs windows unlatched. Peter let himself in. He probably should've called first, but it had been months, and if he'd been able to bring himself to call, he would've done it the day he woke up with memories of dying.

FRIDAY greeted him, oddly muted in comparison to Karen. "Hello, Mr. Parker. Do you need assistance?"

"Where's Tony?" Peter asked.

"Boss is sleeping. Do you need me to wake him?"

Peter winced. Yeah, definitely should have called first. "No, that's okay. Is there somewhere I can wait?"

"He usually goes straight to the workshop upon waking." So he should what, sit in front of the door? "You have full access."

… Peter had access to Tony's private workshop? "Really?"

"Yes."

Feeling like he was intruding, but insatiably curious, Peter followed FRIDAY's directions to get there. "Is there anything I shouldn't touch? Sensitive secret projects I shouldn't even look at?" Peter knew Tony had done work for SHIELD and that, even with the weapons production and design entirely shut down, SI had a number of government contracts. "Stuff I should keep at least three feet from at all times?"

"You have full access," FRIDAY repeated.

Peter walked in only to discover that maybe FRIDAY wasn't concerned because the lab wasn't seeing as much use. Except the workbench and tools, it didn't look like it had been used at all lately. One of the light bulbs in the recesses of the far wall was burned out. There were a few robots, but they were shut down in their charging stations. There was a TV in one corner that had a couple cobwebs stretch from the casing to the wall. Peter had no idea when the last time someone had dusted was, but it was long overdue.

"Anything cool I can see?" Peter asked, because it looked like Tony had been working on something.

"Fabrication is complete," FRIDAY said. A machine along the wall gave the hiss of hydraulics and a lid opened. What it revealed hit him with another set of memories he'd have preferred not to repeat.

—

The gauntlet was huge and ugly, dwarfing Tony's whole arm. Behind him was another Tony, another Peter, standing next to what remained of Thanos, but Tony wasn't looking at them. He was directing something that wasn't quite a smile at his team.

Natasha's hair was dark, a striking red against the blood dripping down her chin. All emotion was wiped from her face. Shuri was holding a staff that sparked at one end, chin tipped up, looking regal. Her smile was small, but real, confident and certain. Bruce was covered in the dirt and dust of an alien planet. He looked like he was ready for it to be over.

"It's been real, and I thank you all for your contributions to making that a lie." The Time Stone glowed green as it dropped into place. "Catch you on the flipside."

—

The gauntlet was smaller, almost delicate in comparison. It looked like it had been made to fit a human hand. It looked like it had been made to fit Tony's hand.

—

Tony didn't hesitate. He didn't even pause when Vision said, "Mr. Stark, how—"

Tony hadn't told anyone what he was thinking. Peter had no more insight than anyone else who had seen Tony's entire life and could feel his pain. It was possible—probable—that he was screaming inside as he held up his hand with the repulsor and hit Vision with a beam that saw him hit the dirt, convulsing. Then again, it was possible Tony felt nothing at all.

Wanda felt enough for both of them, screaming and throwing herself at Tony, wreathed in red mist. Bursts of it preceded her. The gauntlet glowed, and none of it touched Tony. He didn't say anything as he shifted the repulsor to her or as he used it. He didn't say anything as he hit Vision again or as he pried the stone out of his forehead.

Tony said nothing at all as he completed the gauntlet, lifted his hand, and snapped.

—

This gauntlet was empty, but it had slots waiting at each of the knuckles and on the back of the hand. Peter picked it up. It was surprisingly light for such a heavy thing.

Peter walked to the workbench, boosted himself up, and sat right in the middle. While he waited, some memories kept him company.

He'd rather have waited alone.

—

Tony looked terrible. His hair was wet, and he smelled nice, like sandalwood and some sort of spice, but he had dark circles under his eyes and he'd lost weight. His beard was a mess, and his hair was longer than Peter had ever seen it. He was dressed in sweatpants that hung off his hips and a tank top with holes in it.

He was still the most attractive person Peter had ever seen.

Peter clocked the instant Tony saw him, jolting to a halt with wide eyes. Peter looked down at the gauntlet, turning it over in his hands.

"You missed my birthday." He touched the empty, waiting grooves. "Not even a card or pity car."

In the background, another Tony was lecturing a group of scientists about the Time Stone and paradoxes. Peter didn't look at him either.

"Tony, what's this?"

Tony didn't answer right away. When he did, he lied so badly that he might as well not have answered at all. "Nothing."

"That's funny." It wasn't, but Peter kept his voice careful, casual, like he wasn't in the middle of having a minor breakdown right there on Tony's workbench. "It looks like you put a lot of effort into this for it to be nothing. Nice craftsmanship. It's—what, about your size?" Peter slipped his hand inside it, seeing Titan now instead of the workshop. Tony's hand would have definitely fit much better in this one. "It could fit me, too."

"Peter, put it down. You don't know what that is." Tony sounded like he was also about to have some sort of breakdown, which was another sort of lie, because it was obvious he was already in the middle of one. Maybe even the same one since Titan the first time around.

"Oh, no. I think I do." All too well. Peter slipped off the gauntlet and used the strength he was always so careful to control to crush it. Obediently, he dropped it on the workbench beside him. He finally met Tony's eyes. "And you're not going to make another one."

Tony yelled for a while. He shouted. He practically ranted and raved. Peter didn't hold it against him. It was only the hours of waiting that allowed Peter not to do the same. Eventually, Tony wound down, voice quiet, eyes haunted. "You don't know. You just don't."

Peter had practically taken a master class in the gauntlet and the Infinity Stones that decorated and powered it, mostly led by the man in front of him. Peter said, almost quoting, trying to explain, because he had come here to have this conversation, though it was louder than he'd expected and with much less crying, "Weird things, Infinity Stones. They almost have minds of their own, an intelligence and a purpose outside what other people give them." Peter smiled like this wasn't killing him. "Take the Soul Stone. It—how would you put it, Mr. Stark?" Another Tony refreshed Peter's memory. "Ah, right. 'It holds dominion over a certain universal subset, those pesky and unquantifiable bits of energy and connections that make up souls.' Did I get that right?"

It was rhetorical. Of course he got that right. Even without another Tony whispering in his ear, Peter had watched that particular memory six times now. Tony's ashen face was confirmation Peter didn't need.

"The Soul Stone, it likes connections." It liked them enough to maintain them, to keep Peter aware that entire time he was trapped within it. It liked them enough to bring Peter along for the ride every time Tony had put an Infinity Stone to use. "It likes dividing and categorizing and pairing where it can. It has other purposes, has been put to other purposes, but given the choice, it's a bit of a romantic at heart."

Tony dropped to the concrete floor, sitting in a sudden, messy sprawl. He hit hard enough on the way down that Peter would be surprised if he hadn't bruised his knees. It certainly felt like it.

"I probably wasn't the only one who got the dreams, got the pain shared across a connection that remained open through imprisonment in an Infinity Stone."

Tony found his voice. "No."

Peter continued, because he'd gotten this far and he needed to see this through. "But I'm probably the only one whose soulmate held six Infinity Stones in his grasp to make sure we all lived."

"You can't—you shouldn't know about that."

Peter shrugged. "Dreams aside, I woke up a few months back to the worst pain I've ever experienced and a lifetime's worth of memories experienced secondhand. It, uh, it took a while for them to really settle or for me to understand them."

"Tell me you didn't think you were me for a while." Tony said this like _that_ was finally his worst case scenario.

Peter couldn't help the laugh. "No. No, that wasn't a problem. Secondhand. Not like they were my own." The amusement faded quickly. He hopped down from the workbench and approached Tony's prone figure. "Mr. Stark. Tony. I know what you did. I know why you did it. And you can't ever do it again."

"You don't know." Tony didn't sound like he believed it. He dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Peter put his hand on Tony's head, carded his fingers through Tony's damp hair. Peter waited for Tony to open his eyes again, for Tony to look at him. "I do know. And you know what my best memory of it was?" His hands trembled, because these were his memories now, and he still couldn't handle them. "I remember dying. I remembering knowing I was dying, and as you held me in your arms, all I could think about was how grateful I was that if I had to go, at least I wasn't alone. At least it was there, with you, knowing if I had to leave you, it was safe behind. I remember being scared, I remember not being ready, and I remember wanting to stay, but most of all I remember you, refusing to let me go."

Peter swallowed. He blinked hard, eyes burning. He got down on Tony's level. He kept his hand in Tony's soft, wet hair. "I know. And if it ever happens again, Tony, this is me asking you, begging you, to let me go."

"I can't," Tony said.

"You lived decades without me." Peter crooked a smile, tried to make himself believe it. "You've barely let yourself be alone in the same room with me and refuse to until I reach some arbitrary age that makes you feel a little less bad about yourself. And you're one of the strongest people I know. I promise, you can."

Tony looked away. He shook his head, dislodging Peter's hand. He repeated, "I can't. Don't ask this of me."

"You've pretty well proven you can do anything you put your mind to." Peter brought his hand back up, raised both hands to cradle Tony's face. Peter was prepared to beg. "Tony. Please."

Tony shut his eyes. His voice shook as he said, "FRIDAY, initiate Broken Chains protocol."

FRIDAY sounded slightly different as she said, "Boss, what did you do?"

"Remember the supervillain protocols? Enact those, too."

"Peter, you're the new admin in the case of Mr. Stark being compromised or otherwise incapacitated. This—apparently applies." She repeated, " _What did you do_?"

Peter couldn't describe what he felt right now, but it was overwhelming, heartbreaking, entirely too much. Tony's eyes were closed, but Peter couldn't help himself. He lunged down to press their lips together, hard and fast and wrong—that this was their first kiss, that they weren't always kissing, that Peter had kissed Tony at all. It wasn't the right moment, but then again, it had never been the right moment. Peter had died without getting to have this. Surely Tony could forgive him the once.

"FRIDAY, delete everything to do with the Infinity Gauntlet." Peter pressed another kiss to Tony's forehead, because he was weak and Tony was within arm's reach. "Thank you, Tony."

Peter made himself get up. He walked away.

—

Peter ended up on the roof. Tony probably needed space, but Peter couldn't bring himself to actually leave. He had FRIDAY available through his phone, and she said she'd alert him if he was needed.

"Anything he works on, you send to me," Peter said.

FRIDAY agreed.

Peter didn't ask what Tony was doing. He lay on the roof, slate tiles digging into his back, and stared up at a cloudless sky. It had no immediate connotations, no connections for the memories to draw upon. It was just Peter, the phone in his pocket with FRIDAY's voice, and the blue, blue sky.

The only memories that kept him company were his own.

—

He was startled out of an almost meditative reverie by the phone ringing, a custom ringtone he'd put in for Tony back when optimism had burned a little more brightly. Almost disbelieving, Peter answered it. He got the first word in, determined to remain unswayed. "I'm not letting FRIDAY un-delete them. It's too late. Those designs are gone forever now."

"Yeah. I know. That's not what this is about." Peter waited. By this point, he had a lot of practice in waiting on Tony. "This would've been easier if you'd let it go to voicemail."

Peter closed his eyes, trying hard not to let that hurt. He had a lot of practice at that, too. "I can hang up if you want."

"Graduation," Tony said nonsensically.

"What?"

"That's the arbitrary age that makes me feel a little less bad about myself. Preferably your college one, but let's not kid ourselves here. I am bad at denying myself things I really, desperately want, no matter how bad an idea they might be."

Feeling a bit distant from himself, Peter said, "You're pretty good at it from where I'm standing."

"You're in high school."

Ah, there they were. Back on the familiar ground of Tony being kind of an asshole who couldn't be bothered to pay attention to his own soulmate's life. Then again, he'd been distracted lately. He sort of had an excuse. Not a good one, but an excuse nonetheless.

Peter huffed, unimpressed with everything right now. "I'm in my twenties, depending on how you look at it. And in my memories, I'm standing right beside you for every one of those decades you waited."

"It's not the same."

"I know." Peter inhaled, calling for patience. He asked the question he'd meant to start with, before he'd seen the gauntlet. "Tony, what's the key for?"

Tony tried to pretend ignorance. Peter wasn't impressed with that, either. "What do you mean? What key?"

"It's not a car key. They don't look like that, even your weird, super expensive cars that are basically modern works of art. I've checked."

"What does it look like?"

Peter pressed, "It looks like a house key."

Tony didn't deny it. "There you go."

"Tony, you couldn't come to my sixteenth birthday, but you gave me a key to your house?" Peter had had a key to Tony's house since he was _sixteen years old_?

"It's symbolic. I'd already keyed you into security. FRIDAY would've let you in any time you asked."

"You mean I didn't have to climb in your second story window?" Peter asked flippantly, trying not to scream. He purposefully slid off the roof and caught himself one-handed on the closest window sill. "You give off a lot of mixed signals, you know that?"

"Hey, there were no mixed signals about, 'You're fifteen.'"

"I'm not fifteen anymore." Peter tried the window, but this one was actually locked. He knocked on the pane. "Tony, come to the window."

Tony let him in. "Were you out there the whole time?"

"I wanted to give you space." Peter shrugged and thumbed the phone off. "But not so much space you had the chance to hack FRIDAY's programming again."

"Get in here. Who sits on the outside of the building? This place is huge. I wouldn't have noticed if you decided to crash on a couch somewhere." Yeah, Tony didn't notice much of anything.

"I was on the roof. It's peaceful up there." Peter blew out a breath. He could be mad about this, about everything, but he'd much rather move on. He'd had a key to Tony's house since he was sixteen, and at some point Tony had made him default admin to his AI. "The gauntlet and everything really did a number on you, huh? You haven't been aware of the time at all."

Tony cleared his throat. "I'm sorry about your birthday."

Peter smiled, but he really wasn't feeling it. Tony had been waiting for graduation, but Peter had walked that aisle with only Aunt May watching. He wasn't mad, sure, was ready to move on, but he couldn't pretend to be happy about it, either. "Tony, it's August. I'm moving into the dorms at the end of the month."

"But—you're in high school."

Peter was really, really unimpressed with Tony's ability to keep up right now. "You missed graduation, too, but I'd expected that." He put a hand on Tony's back and pushed him down the hall. "When was the last time you had real food?"

"I don't—"

"FRIDAY, when was the last time Tony had real food? And which way is the kitchen?"

—

Over omelets he'd cooked, which turned out pretty well for a first attempt, Peter said, "I'm eighteen. I'm not in high school. If you want, let's start over. I'm Peter Parker. I think I might be your soulmate."

"I'm terribly in love with you," Tony said.

Peter dropped his fork. He was glad he was sitting down. "You're supposed to play along, introduce yourself. Would you really have said that the day we met if I hadn't been fifteen?"

Tony shook his head. "I'm sorry, but I don't want to start over." He smiled weakly. "I have invested far too much in how things have turned out. Maybe I could do better—definitely, I could do better—but if I get to sit here, alone in a kitchen with you, eating slightly burnt eggs you made me, then I'd very much like to keep that."

Peter stared. Tony's face was open. There was something fragile in his eyes, waiting. Peter made himself say, "Finish your eggs."

"What's the rush?"

"Because I'm not going to interrupt your first real breakfast in days, but I'd really like to kiss you right now." And Peter had no idea if he could make himself stop once they got started. Tony had already proven he was incapable of taking care of himself. Peter wasn’t letting his omelets go to waste, even if they were a little burnt.

Tony finished his eggs.

Peter dumped the empty dishes in the sink, not bothering to rinse them, then pressed Tony into the cushions of one of his many couches. Peter kissed Tony over and over again, checking in at every level of escalation, determined not to take anything else without asking. "Is this okay?"

"Yes," Tony said every time. Then, finally, "Anything. Anything you want."

Peter kissed him one last time before pulling back. "You can't say that. I want everything."

"I'd give it to you."

Peter wanted it. He wanted it too much. But it was Peter's turn to be responsible. "Let's start with a date."

"Done."

—

They went on some dates. Peter packed for college. Time kept slipping away.

A week before he was set to leave, he let himself in to Tony's bedroom through the window. He knocked first. He was tired all the time now, and it wasn't because _he_ wasn't sleeping. He was prepared to tie Tony to the bed if need be.

It wasn't necessary, but Peter had a lot of fun with the thought. It was much nicer than the reality of Tony's nightmares and getting a flailing fist to the jaw when Peter tried shaking him awake.

Tony didn't take to being comforted with any grace. He didn't allow it at all, pushing Peter away.

—

Peter showed up again the next night anyway.

Peter was nearly asleep when Tony asked, "What are you doing here?"

 _Not sleeping_ , Peter thought crabbily, then sucked it up. "I want to be." He kissed Tony's jaw. "I sleep better in your arms, and at least one of us needs to."

"I'm trying," Tony said, even though talking _was not sleeping_.

"Try harder."

Tony stopped talking, at least. Peter tried not to feel guilty about that.

He felt much less guilty when Tony woke him with the words, "I don't know what I'm going to do when you're gone."

"At this rate, I'm going to outlive you." Because Peter was going to _murder_ him. Secondhand sleep deprivation was a lot worse than secondhand drinking or secondhand pain.

"You're moving to the dorms in five days," Tony said like Peter hadn't spoken at all.

Peter shared his murder plans. Tony didn't go back to sleep. Maybe Peter would smother himself.

—

The night before he had to leave, Peter said, "I don't want to wait until I graduate college."

Tony didn't make him.

—

Peter started college. He called Tony every night, and Tony answered this time. The first time Peter heard Tony's voice instead of his voicemail, he thought he might cry.

"Hey," Peter said. His voice wobbled a little.

"Is something wrong?" Tony asked, all alarm, and Peter smiled.

"I miss you." It was true, even if it wasn't _the_ truth.

"Me, too."

Peter regretted MIT for a lot of reasons, but one of them was definitely that he couldn't climb in Tony's window that night.

—

(Most of them were the memories, though.)

—

Everywhere he looked, there was another memory waiting. It was funny how much Peter missed Tony when every time he turned around, Tony was right there. Peter missed Tony, but he couldn't escape him.

—

He went home for fall break, first to May's, then to Tony's. Peter held it together despite Tony's memories hiding around every corner. It helped to touch Tony, to ground himself in the one Tony who was real.

"Did you grow up here?" Peter asked, sliding his fingers through Tony's hair.

Tony had his face buried in Peter's shoulder. "Yeah. How'd you know? FRIDAY telling tales? She wasn't even here for that. _JARVIS_ wasn't even here for that."

"Secondhand memories, remember?" Peter said lightly, like they weren't drowning him the longer he stayed.

"Sorry. I can't have left you too many good ones."

"You'd be surprised." Or maybe Tony wouldn't if he thought about it, let the better ones surface a while. "You were a really cute kid, you know that?"

Too bad it was an older, angrier, but still heartbreakingly young Tony that Peter saw the most. He skulked the halls and punched a wall and threw a vase. Peter wanted to put a hand on his shoulder, to pull him in for a hug. He settled for embracing his Tony instead.

At one point, Tony offered to come visit. Peter didn't want Tony to see him at MIT, head in the clouds, lost in memories. (He didn't want to make it worse.) Peter wasn't proud of himself, but he pretended he hadn't heard the hope, the want, in Tony's voice; pretended he didn't understand it was an offer at all.

—

Despite the distractions, the way he only felt clear headed and unaccompanied when he was out on patrol, Peter aced his courses.

"I don't get you, Parker," the TA of his physics class said as he turned in his blue book, one of the first to finish. She looked confused. "I could swear you zoned out of every class, but you obviously know your stuff. Were you just bored?"

"Definitely not bored," Peter said. Definitely, definitely not bored. Peter wouldn't have believed anyone would have the chutzpah to have sex in a lecture hall if not for the number of times he'd watched Tony do that very thing.

But zoned out? No lie there.

—

Peter dropped his stuff at May's when he got in. He caught up with Ned. He wandered around the city in costume, refamiliarizing himself with its ebbs and flows, the heartbeat of his neighborhood. At least the memories here were all his.

Then he went home, because Queens was cold, and Tony's bed was warm, waiting for him. Even better, Tony was waiting for him in it.

It was too bad he wasn't the only one.

—

Peter didn't want to go back to MIT, but he didn't want to stay, either. He wanted to take Tony and go somewhere neither of them had ever been, make some entirely new memories together.

Classes were starting. Peter attended them.

—

He wished he'd stayed when a month and a half later the pain bowled him over between classes. He sat up and, through gritted teeth, said, "FRIDAY, call Tony." There was no way he was going to be able to hold the phone and dial. He wasn't sure he could put weight on his right leg, and his arm was basically useless.

The call rang through.

"Boss can't answer the phone," FRIDAY said.

"Yeah." Peter rested his forehead against his left knee. In retrospect, he wouldn't be able to, either. "What happened? Is there anything—is there anything I can do?" He felt helpless, useless.

"He fell off the roof."

What.

"Emergency services are on their way."

"Good. Good job, FRIDAY."

"For you, too, Mr. Parker."

Peter wanted to protest, but honestly? There was no way he was going to class like this. Never mind the secondhand pain turning his hand purple. He was concerned about the source. He'd probably need a doctor's note for a medical withdrawal.

—

By the time the hospital released Peter, Tony was in surgery. Secondhand anesthesia from a certified anesthesiologist was better than field surgery without it, but it wasn't any more pleasant the second time around. Neither was the actual surgery. By the time Peter had gotten his ducks in a row for medical leave, Tony was awake again.

"Mr. Parker, Boss is trying to leave the hospital."

"Make Dr. Banner sit on him," Peter said, throwing his clothes one-handed in a duffel bag.

"He's planning to go to Hong Kong. I don't believe Dr. Banner will make it in time."

"Call him."

Tony picked up this time.

"You're an idiot."

"Hello, dear. You're on speakerphone."

Tony didn't want to stay in the hospital. Peter did his best to make him stay in the hospital.

—

Tony stayed in the hospital. Dr. Banner didn't make it on time.

—

(The Hulk made a brief appearance, though.)

—

So the thing about having one's heart cut out of one's chest metaphorically as one felt it actually happen secondhand was that it gave that person perspective. Clarity. A deeper understanding of exactly how far a person might go when they felt their soulmate die and could do nothing to stop it.

"FRIDAY," Peter said, sprawled there on his dorm room floor, clutching uselessly at his chest, "I need those gauntlet plans."

Tony may have deleted everything related to the gauntlet whenever he realized he was designing it again, but FRIDAY had made Peter copies as Tony worked of everything Tony had worked on.

And Peter hadn't deleted a thing.

—

It was too late, but Peter went to New York. They didn't make him identify the body, but they did let him see it.

It wasn't Tony. Not really. It was just a broken home where he used to reside.

Peter touched Tony's jaw lightly, lightly, just the barest brush of his fingers against Tony's goatee. Beside him, an insubstantial copy stood. He was speaking, but his words were a meaningless buzzing in Peter's ears.

No one commented on Peter zoning out. He stood there, looking at Tony's empty eyes, for a long, long time.

—

The first person Peter talked to besides FRIDAY was Vision. FRIDAY tracked him down and sent him to Peter.

"I need the Mind Stone," Peter said.

Vision looked awkward as he said, "I regret to inform you that I'm still using it."

"Yeah, but I think there's a way around that."

There was. No one had to die. Peter hoped no one told Tony when they got him back. Then again, Peter suspected Tony had already known. There had to be a reason he hated himself so much.

—

It took a bit to get to New Asgard. People kept wanting to talk to Peter. They wanted him to sign papers, to let them arrange a funeral. Tony had left plans, but he'd also left final say with Peter. Everything was in his name now.

"I don't care," Peter told Pepper.

"Maybe not now," Pepper said, and her eyes were rimmed red, "but later—"

"I'm getting him back. I don't care, because soon enough, it won't matter."

"Peter—"

Peter stepped back, shook his head. "No. I'm sorry, but no, I can't do this. Do what you like. I won't be there."

(Thor showed up for the funeral, but Peter wasn't going to New Asgard to talk to him.)

—

"I'm the only one who remembers what it's like, how the gauntlet works and what the Infinity Stones can do," Peter said. "And I'm pretty sure I can fix this."

"Why should I care about one petty mortal?" Loki asked.

"Because he's my price for bringing all of Asgard back." Peter stared at him, refusing to look away. "Anyone who died in range of a Stone."

"I care not for Asgard," Loki said. He made a gesture, and a glowing cube appeared. "But for one person—yes, I can see the merit in it." He offered the cube, then held it back. "We bring back my mother first."

—

Things slowed down from there. Strange was lying low. Every time Peter checked a sanctum, Strange had recently left. Peter used the time to have FRIDAY start the gauntlet.

"I'm not going to change time," Peter finally told Wong, exasperated. "The universe is safe. I'm just … going to nudge reality a bit."

"Because that's never turned out poorly," Wong said.

"Look, I'll give it back, okay? As soon as I'm done with it."

Strange stepped out of a portal. "That is not the bargain I plan to strike. And I wasn't avoiding you. I have responsibilities here I needed to take care of first." He hefted a suitcase. "I'm ready to leave when you are."

—

Thor lent them a spaceship. Thor insisted on going with them.

"My brother can watch over Asgard in my absence," Thor proclaimed.

Loki shook his head slowly. He fingered the staff in his hands. There was a terrible gleam in his eyes.

"Or our dear friend Brunnhilde can take watch."

Loki inclined his head.

"I'd ask the Gatekeeper, but Heimdall will, of course, accompany us. We'll need his vision."

Loki looked kind of like he was considering stabbing Thor.

—

Peter didn't keep track of the days, the months, the years. Time was kind of meaningless in space. The Nova Corps didn't want to give up the Power Stone, but they had suffered heavy losses against Ronan. They were willing to negotiate.

That brought Peter up to four.

"Knowhere?" Loki said.

"Knowhere," Peter agreed.

—

The Collector was the last of his kind. He didn't want to be anymore.

Unfortunately, none of the rest of them had died in range of a Stone.

Loki obliged him. He wasn't the last of his kind anymore.

"What the hell?" Peter said, Thor holding him back. "How could you—?"

"I will allow no one and nothing to stand in our way." Loki wiped the blood off his dagger. "Not even your pathetic sense of morality. Think of it this way: if you truly wish, you can always bring him back. He died in range of not one, but five Stones."

—

The Soul Stone was the last. It required a sacrifice.

"I will gladly push you over that cliff myself," Loki said.

Of someone they loved.

"I will gladly push Thor over that cliff myself," Loki said.

A permanent sacrifice.

Loki's glare was glorious and terrifying.

"It's not your sacrifice," Peter said softly. "You could say I've already made it. What it really needs is a—a framework. Someone or something to work off of."

The others saw a cliff. Peter saw a hand reaching out. He took it. Tony stared back at him. He was fifteen; he was nearly fifty. He was ageless, timeless, undying and unreal. He wasn't Tony at all.

Peter felt lighter for the memories finally leaving him.

Loki extended his spear at Peter. Thor had a hand on his shoulder. "Remember. My mother first."

Peter turned over the stone in his hand. He dropped it into place on the gauntlet he hadn't taken off since FRIDAY smithed it. Holding up his hand, Peter didn't snap. He just said, "I've got one last favor to ask of you." The sky overhead was a purple that was almost blue, but all Peter saw was the orange of the Soul Stone. "Please. Give them back."

—

The Soul Stone always was a romantic at heart.

—

Tony coalesced out of nothingness straight into Peter's arms.

—

**Author's Note:**

> Content advisories: everything from the end notes of TBE, mental health issues, self-harm, (temporary) main character death, still a resolution that does not wrap everything up or fix everything. Please let me know if you have any questions or special concerns.


End file.
